SEO boosting backlinks – the what, the why and how to get them for free.

Hayley ClarkSEO content specialist

August 14, 2018

When people think about search engine optimisation (SEO), many seem to think it’s all about stuffing keywords all over the show. As much as a few carefully placed keywords are worth their weight in Bitcoin, there’s a lot more to it than that.

SEO link building is fast becoming a favourite strategy of digital marketers who know the value of this slightly more difficult – but highly worthwhile – endeavour.

What is link building?

Don’t overthink this one – link building is simply any activities you undertake to encourage other websites to link back to your site. Naturally, these links are known as backlinks.

The reason why link building strategies are so important is that search engines (AKA Google) use these links to help determine how useful your page is. For example, if Forbes were to put a link in one of their articles to your page, Google would essentially see that your page is useful and informative.

Not all backlinks are created equal, however. The difference between Forbes linking to your site and a tiny unheard of blog that no one reads linking to your site is massive. When you’re looking for potential candidates to talk to about links, try to find those that are not only relevant to your brand in some way, but also have a reasonable level of social following and a solid domain authority as well.

Aside from crossing your fingers and hoping someone will kindly link to you, you can also get in touch and ask if they would perhaps review your product or service, or add a link to an upcoming or existing relevant blog post.

Templates to send out for SEO link building.

To ask for a review:

Hi there [influencer name],

My name is [your name], and I work for [company name]. We [explain your brand or service and what makes you special].

I was recently browsing through blogs in [your industry or field] and came across yours. I particularly loved the article on [name specific article] because [give specific, realistic and fun reason for why you genuinely liked it, expand as much as you can to make this personal].

I’m sure you get plenty of review requests, but I’d love to add one to the mix. I’d like to [offer you a free trial/send you a free product]. [If it’s not immediately obvious, explain more about what the product or service is and what makes it stand out here]. I think it would be right up your alley, and we understand that if you don’t like it, it won’t get a positive review (although we’re pretty confident you’ll love it!). To keep our marketing team happy, we are looking for a backlink included somewhere in the review as part of the agreement as well.

Please let me know if you’d like to give [product/service] a try, or if you have any questions for me at all.

Many thanks,

[Your name]

To ask for a backlink:

Hi there [influencer name],

My name is [your name], and I work for [company name]. We [explain your brand or service and what makes you special].

I was recently browsing through blogs in [your industry or field] and came across yours. I particularly loved the article on [name specific article] because [give specific, realistic and fun reason for why you genuinely liked it, expand as much as you can to make this personal].

Now I’ll cut to the chase as I’m sure you get plenty of inquiries, but I was wondering if you are open to working with brands? At the moment we’re working on creating a few great backlinks to our site, and I’m only getting in touch with a handful of bloggers that I think would be a good fit for the brand.

Please let me know if this is something you’d be interested in at all and we can take it from there!

Many thanks,

[Your name]

What next?

While backlinks are essential to boosting your SEO, there are also a number of other factors, such as fresh and relevant content, keyword strategy and accurate metadata descriptions. If you need a hand in any of these areas, Yellow can help. Our team of dedicated experts have years of experience developing and refining SEO strategy for small business. To find out more, visit our SEO product page.

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Author

Hayley ClarkSEO content specialist

Hayley Clark is a content writer born and bred in New Zealand. She has been writing, editing, and working in SEO for over five years, for a myriad of companies, including Virgin Money, Thrifty, Destination New South Wales and Michael Page.